Life without Images

One sees that one is leading an isolated life - though one may have a wife and children, yet in oneself there is a self-isolating process going on. The wife, the girlfriend or the boyfriend, each is actually living in isolation; though living together in the same house, each one is isolated, with his own ambitions, with his own fears, with his own sorrow. Living like this is called relationship. Again, this is a fact: you have your image about her and she has her image about you and you have your own image about yourself. The relationship is between these images and is not an actual relationship. So first one must find out how these images are constructed, how they come into being, why they should exist, and what it means to live without such images. I do not know if you have ever considered whether a life in which there is no image, no formula, is possible and what a life without images would mean.

By Jiddu Krishnamurti